Nitrate Supplies and the Nitrogen Industry

Abstract

THE Imperial Mineral Resources Bureau has recently issued a report on the nitrate industry of the British Empire and of foreign countries, containing all available statistics with regard to the production and prices of nitrates during the war period. In conjunction with this report may be considered a paper dealing with the nitrogen industry contributed by H. E. Fischer to the Journal of the Franklin Institute (August, 1920, vol. cxc, No. 2). This paper gives a comprehensive survey of the sources of the world's nitrogen supply, particularly as it affects America. Nitrogenous compounds are absolutely necessary to agriculture, to the manufacture of munitions, to refrigeration, and to the general applications of chemistry, and although nitrogen in its inert gaseous state forms four-fifths of the atmosphere, yet this is of no use for the above objects until it has been combined or “fixed” by some method.